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It is rather late, all the same. Her cousin came at dinner time. B says Mamma ought to go to call on the Marquise de M . He says it is the custom here, especially from a foreigner to a Roman lady. Let Mamma go anywhere, provided that I can go where I like. My torture has no bounds, I am dying of it every instant. Do you want a proof of my despair?

The marquise heard of him so often, and it was so frequently declared to her that nature seemed to have formed them for each other, that she began to allow admission to a very strong desire of seeing him.

The eternal Abbe Bossuet was to become first chaplain, as being the tutor-in-chief to the Dauphin; the Duchesse de Richelieu, for her great name, was going to be lady of honour; and the two posts of ladies in waiting were destined for the Marquise de Rochefort, wife of the Marshal, and for Madame de Maintenon, ex-governess of the Duc du Maine.

The marquise was one of the best informed women in Paris; her salon, as an old academician had said mythologically, was the Temple of Fame. "I think the sitting is about to begin," said Madame de l'Estorade; fearing some blow from the claws of the marquise, she was eager to put an end to the conversation.

They greeted us with their charming amiability, and, after having spoken of several indifferent matters, the Marquise said to me: "We saw, five or six days ago, a person, madame, of whom you were formerly very fond, and who charged us to recall her to the memory of her friends.

"Hear me first, Monsieur le Seneschal, or it will be the worse for you." And the Seneschal, moved by that confident promise of evil, threw himself before the men-at-arms. "A moment, I beseech you, Marquise," he cried, and the men, seeing his earnestness and knowing his quality, stood undecided, buffeted as they were between his will and the Marquise's. "What have you to say to me?"

Usually so respectful and so deferential in manner, he now seized M. Rambert by the arm, and imperiously waving Thérèse and Charles away, drew him aside. "It is awful, sir," he exclaimed: "horrible: a fearful thing has happened. We have just found Mme. la Marquise dead murdered in her room!"

The cortege had only gone a few steps, when the face of the marquise, for a time a little calmer, was again convulsed. From her eyes, fixed constantly on the crucifix, there darted a flaming glance, then came a troubled and frenzied look which terrified the doctor. He knew she must have been struck by something she saw, and, wishing to calm her, asked what it was.

The marquise neither could nor would enter upon a struggle; she resigned herself, therefore, to hearing what the abbe had to say to her, and her face assumed that air of haughty disdain which women so well know how to put on when they wish a man to understand that he has nothing to hope from them. There was an instant's silence; the abbe was the first to break it.

The box belonging to the First Gentleman of the Bedchamber is situated in one of the angles at the back of the house, so that its occupants see and are seen all over the theatre. Lucien took his seat on a chair behind Mme. de Bargeton, thankful to be in the shadow. "M. de Rubempre," said the Marquise with flattering graciousness, "this is your first visit to the Opera, is it not?